YANA - YOU ARE NOT ALONE NOW

PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT SITE

GOLD

T Weston lives in Texas, USA. He was 76 when he was diagnosed on December 16, 1996. His initial PSA was 8.7 ng/ml, his Gleason Score was 4+3=7 and he was staged T1c. His choice of treatment was Watchful Waiting. Here is his story.

In 1997 I discovered that M. D. Anderson Hospital advised that green tea had an anti-tumor and anti-malignancy effect. Started taking green tea capsules equivalent to 21 cups /day. PSA dropped 20% in 30 days.

In 2001 PSA rose to 17.5. Started Finasteride/cardura regimen.

Currently taking 14 cups of green tea equivalent. PSA has reached 49.6 on May 5, 2009 increasing from 47.9 on June 16, 2008.

Prostate has become very large and is pressing on urethra and bladder.

I was also diagnosed for bladder cancer in 1996 and have been concentrating on fighting it while putting minimum effort into the prostate cancer treatment.

 

UPDATED

August 2010

 

 

When I was first diagnosed in 1996 Dr. Babaian at M.D.Anderson gave me some very sound advice: "Listen to all the doctors, do your own research and then decide what you want to do." I understood what he was saying. Any treatment option I select was as good as any the doctors recommend. It meant to me that there was no cure only hope to find a solution with an eye on QOL.

My PSA continued to double every four years and reached 60.0 ng/ml earlier this year with a Testosterone level of 300+. Considering that I am on Proscar, the 60 was really 120. My doctor wanted to see how I would react to Casodex and I took it for 30 days, 50 mg/day. My PSA dropped to 13.5 and my T level rose to 600+. We stopped the Casodex. In my opinion PSA as a marker is not a reliable indicator of your condition.

The main reason my prostate cancer was not treated during all these years was that I had bladder cancer requiring far more attention and treatment. I may have come to some wrong conclusions, but my advice is not to panic and use a cannon to shoot a bird. Only about 30% of prostate cancer is aggressive and should be treated in some manner. About 10% of the treated 30% is fatal. So the odds are 97:3 that you won't die from it but die with it. [TW is correct here - less than 3% of male deaths are from prostate cancer: 97% from some other cause] Statistics are misleading. The majority of annual prostate cancer deaths reported include untreated cancers discovered at their final stages. You may change the numbers around a bit depending on your beliefs, but it seems that you are more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident than of prostate cancer [See The Elephant In The Room for more on this subject].

T's e-mail address is: weston5468@mac.com